Today's Top Alzheimer's News

November 15, 2013

The toll of Alzheimer's on caregivers, the University of Rhode Island receives $15 million for a new neuroscience institute, and Alzheimer's Research UK will launch a new drug discovery institute (read more).

A November 14, 2013 Providence Journal article reported that the University of Rhode Island received a $15 million gift from Thomas M. Ryan to establish an institute focused on neurodegenerative diseases. According to the article, "It establishes the George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience, which will recruit a director and three other faculty members of national renown to expand URI's work in neuroscience and complement research being done elsewhere in Rhode Island…Ryan, the former chairman, president and CEO of CVS Caremark, also talked about his father's Alzheimer's disease and burdens it placed on his mother. "It's awful," he said. "We need to find a way around this.""

Research and science

A November 14, 2013 WHNT.com article and video highlighted the link between lifestyle and Alzheimer's. According to the article, "Scientists from Tulane University now believe the lifestyle many people live may contribute to them getting Alzheimer’s later in life.There is new evidence that shows being out of shape and a poor diet can take a toxic toll on the brain…Dr. Busija is the Pharmacology Chair at Tulane. He found that the lining of the blood vessels that nourish brain cells can’t deliver oxygen rich blood efficiently when two things are present: high blood sugar, and the protein associated with brain plaques in those with Alzheimer’s. The cells even begin to die."

A November 14, 2013 Bloomberg article reported that "Alzheimer’s Research U.K., the country’s leading dementia research charity, will fund a new drug discovery institute to address a gap in treatments it says the pharmaceutical industry has failed to fill." According to the article, "The charity will ask universities in the U.K. to apply to host the institute, which will aim to develop new treatments for Alzheimer’s, it said in a statement today. Alzheimer’s Research U.K. will fund the institute with a 2 million-pound ($3.2 million) grant per year for at least five years, spokeswoman Kirsty Marais said by phone."

A November 14, 2013 NPR article reported that a new study has found that "Bilingual patients suffer dementia onset an average of 4.5 years later than those who speak only a single language." According to the article, "While knowledge of a protective effect of bilingualism isn't entirely new, the present study significantly advances scientists' knowledge. Media reports emphasize the size of its cohort: 648 patients from a university hospital's memory clinic, including 391 who were bilingual. It's also touted as the first study to reveal that bilingual people who are illiterate derive the same benefit from speaking two languages as do people who read and write. It also claims to show that the benefit applies not only to Alzheimer's sufferers but also people with frontotemporal and vascular dementia."

Why 2020?

UsAgainstAlzheimer’s has retained its goal of stopping Alzheimer’s by 2020 rather than endorsing the goal of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease that calls for preventing and effectively treating the disease by 2025. While we support the national plan and its goals, we believe, as most every family touched by Alzheimer’s disease believes, that preventing and effectively treating Alzheimer's by 2025 is simply too long a wait for concrete progress. There are promising avenues of drug discovery and development that will, if successful, deliver a means of slowing or deferring Alzheimer's symptoms by 2020. By voicing the urgency felt by so many families, we will pressure researchers and industry to do all in their power to make that happen.